The leader of Lebanon's Tehran-backed Hezbollah group called Friday for the death in a US strike of top Iranian commander Major General Qasem Soleimani to be avenged.

"Meting out the appropriate punishment to these criminal assassins... will be the responsibility and task of all resistance fighters worldwide," Hassan Nasrallah said in a statement.

"We who stayed by his side will follow in his footsteps and strive day and night to accomplish his goals," the leader of powerful Shiite militant group said.

"We will carry a flag on all battlefields and all fronts and we will step up the victories of the axis of resistance with the blessing of his pure blood," Nasrallah said.

The "axis of resistance" is a term that refers to an alliance formed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah to fight against Israel and the Western military presence in the region.

The heavily armed Hezbollah group controls whole neighbourhoods in Beirut and most of the south of Lebanon, including the area bordering Israel.

It also has fighters deployed in Syria and Iraq who were operating under Soleimani's command.

Syria regime condemns Iraq strike, opposition rejoices
Beirut (AFP) Jan 3, 2020 - The Syrian government on Friday condemned the killing of top Iranian and Iraqi commanders in a US strike which was hailed by the opposition.

The strike outside Baghdad airport killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and the deputy chief of Iraq's pro-Iran paramilitary organisation, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Syria is "certain that this cowardly US aggression... will only strengthen determination to follow in the path of the resistance's martyred leaders," a foreign ministry official was quoted as saying by the state news agency SANA.

The official described the killings as "a serious escalation of the situation" in the region and accused the United States of resorting to "the methods of criminal gangs".

The unnamed official said the strike was "part of the (US) policy aiming to create tensions and fuel conflict in countries in the region."

Soleimani had been a key backer of President Bashar al-Assad and helped him save his position after an uprising that began in 2011 threatened to topple his regime.

He was Iran's pointman in organising Iranian forces and their Shiite-dominated foreign proxies on the Syrian battlefield and a frequent visitor to Damascus.

Leaders of Syrian opposition groups for their part hailed the death of a man they blame for thousands for thousands of deaths in the nearly nine-year-old civil war.

"The murder of Qasem Soleimani, the number one perpetrator of Revolutionary Guards' crimes against the people of Syria and Iraq, is a blow that confirms that the world is able to stop Iran and protect Syrian civilians if it wants to," Nasr Hariri, a senior political opposition leader, said.

Ahmed Ramadan, another senior opposition figure, also praised the US strike.

"The killer of Syria's children has been killed, the killer of Iraq's free people has been killed," he said in a post on social media.

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Iraqi force says 'US strike' killed top Iran, Iraq commanders at Baghdad airport
Baghdad (AFP) Jan 3, 2020
Top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US strike on Baghdad's international airport on Friday, Iraq's powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force has said, in a dramatic escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran. The Hashed's deputy chief was also killed in the attack, the force added, which comes after a pro-Iran mob this week laid siege to the US embassy following deadly American air strikes on a hardline Hashed faction. "The deputy head of the Hashed, Abu Mahdi al-M ... read more